Waterloo Coop: Only 6% of UW Coop Students Negotiate Salary

Just twenty of the first 331 responses to Coop Salaries’ Submit a Salary form indicated they negotiated for the amount they earned. The rest either preferred not say (2%) or took the first offer they were given (92%).

“Labor markets are auctions, not supermarkets. In other words, prices are negotiable.” –Paul Shustak, CEO and Co-Founder of Karen.care

What does this mean for you?

It means if you negotiate your salary, you’re probably a minority on campus. (If you have negotiated your salary, whether successfully or not, give us a shout at hello [at] coopsalaries.com, we want to tell your story).

It also means most salaries you see on Coop Salaries could potentially be bumped up with a bit of negotiating (easier said than done, of course).

Take this finding with a grain of salt, however, for a few reasons:

Our sample size of 331 students is very small in the grand scheme of how many UW coop students there are (we’re trying to grow it, though, if you want to help).

Maybe some of these students have in fact negotiated their salary before, and just not for this particular position.

We don’t know the reason students did or didn’t negotiate their salary (the first offer was great? They were too scared? They didn’t care what the salary was?).

While we don’t want to get into the merits or pitfalls of negotiating in this quick article (we’re saving that for another conversation), here’s an interesting quote someone recently shared about negotiating your salary…

“Labor markets are auctions, not supermarkets. In other words, prices are negotiable.” –Paul Shustak, CEO and Co-Founder of Karen.care